r dress and went out. How
pleasant it was to know that she was going to see her old friend
to whom she could talk freely! The morning seemed to know of her
gladness, and to share in it, for there was a brisk southerly breeze
blowing fresh in from the sea, and the waves were leaping white in the
sunlight. There was no more sluggishness in the air or the gray sky or
the leaden plain of the sea. Sheila knew that the blood was mantling
in her cheeks; that her heart was full of joy; that her whole frame
so tingled with life and spirit that, had she been in Borva, she would
have challenged her deer-hound to a race, and fled down the side of
the hill with him to the small bay of white sand below the house. She
did not pause for a minute when she reached the hotel. She went up the
steps, opened the door and entered the square hall. There was an odor
of tobacco in the place, and several gentlemen standing about rather
confused her, for she had to glance at them in looking for a waiter.
Another minute would probably have found her a trifle embarrassed, but
that, just at this crisis, she saw Ingram himself come out of a room
with a cigarette in his hand. He threw away the cigarette, and came
forward to her with amazement in his eyes.

"Where is Mr. Lavender? Has he gone into the smoking-room for me?" he
asked.

"He is not here," said Sheila. "I have come for you by myself."

For a moment, too, Ingram felt the eyes of the men on him, but
directly he said with a fine air of carelessness, "Well, that is very
good of you. Shall we go out for a stroll until your husband comes?"

So he opened the door and followed her outside into the fresh air and
the roar of the waves.

"Well, Sheila," he said, "this is very good of you, really: where is
Mr. Lavender?"

"He generally rides with Mrs. Lorraine in the morning."

"And what do you do?"

"I sit at the window."

"Don't you go boating?"

"No, I have not been in a boat. They do not care for it. And yesterday
it was a letter to papa I was writing, and I could tell him nothing
about the people here or the fishing."

"But you could not in any case, Sheila. I suppose you would like to
know what they pay for their lines, and how they dye their wool, and
so on; but you would find the fishermen here don't live in that way at
all. They are all civilized, you know. They buy their clothing in the
shops. They never eat any sort of sea-weed, or dye with it, either.
However, I will tell you